The Missing Paladin

Chapter 7

Lance woke up in a type of hospital room. No one else was in the beds next to him but there is a nurse or doctor on the farther end of the room.

"Excuse me? Uh... can you tell me where I am, who you are, and what happened to me?"

She looked at him and she walked closer, but not in a creepy or villainous way, carrying some bandages and medicine. She looked humanoid but with a pale purple skin and her red eyes had cat pupils, her hair was a deep ocean blue and pulled up in a ponytail.

"I am Lateina. And you're on planet Kalof, a neighboring planet of Arus. What happened to you is pretty surprising since you survived. You crash landed in a pod and your robotic arm broke and one of your legs needs to be surgically removed unfortunately."

Lance looked at her and felt tears welling up in his eyes. He then removed the covering on the bed and looked at his leg. It was cleaned of blood but that just revealed the injury more. It was twisted and his foot looked like it was crushed. Probably from a part of the pod.

"Is there a way so that I can walk again?"

"We can get our engineers to make you a new arm and leg. Although we need to find a way to scan your body to be able to connect the limbs to your body correctly."

He nodded and thought of his teammates as the Kalofian changed his bandages.

"We saw your armor earlier. Are you really a Paladin of Voltron?"

Lance looked at her and slowly nodded.

"I was. I don't think I am anymore."

Lateina's eyes showed that she was confused so Lance told her his full story. From when they left Earth, to when he saved Pidge and got captured, to when he escaped the Galra ship, to when he crash landed. The alien listened to his story and tears started to fall from her eyes when he finished.

"It's been so long since I saw them last. I don't think that they're looking for me anymore and think that I am dead. I was going to head to Arus but that planet reminds me of my team and I don't want to see them again."

They sat in silence for a bit and Lateina broke the silence.

"I can make a offer to our king and queen for you to stay and live among the civilians. Maybe your previous experience as a Paladin of Voltron can help us. But for now, you should rest. When you wake, I'll have something for you to eat."

Lance nodded and settled into the cot that was luxury compared to the previous prisoner bed then fell into a peaceful slumber.

~~~~

A few quintants later, Lance found himself standing in front of two thrones made of stone with jewels decorating them. In those thrones were the king and queen of Kalof. Lance was slightly afraid that they might either kill him, contact the Galra, or contact Voltron. None of those sounded good in his opinion. He saw the king stand and Lance gave the king his full attention.

"I see that you have some kind of worry in you. Don't be. Even if Voltron hasn't visited us for an alliance yet, we would gladly be allies with them. That is getting off topic since we are here because of you. What should we call you?"

Lance stood there for a few ticks before answering.

"My name is Lance McClain but can I be called Azul if I have to live here?"

"Of course. How are your new limbs? I hope that the scans worked and we connected the properly."

"They work great. Almost as if they're not actually prosthetics."

He wasn't lying. In a way, the tech of the Kalofians were similar to Altean technology. Some electric blue lights where the joints are on the white body of the robotic limbs. The king smiled.

"Amazing! I am pleased by the work of our engineers. My name is King Marcoro. This is my wife, Queen Marieterria. We are hoping that you will take our offer of letting you be a resident of, not only a citizen of Kalof, but a resident of the castle."

Lance stood there shocked. He didn't think that the king and queen would let him live there in the castle. But he decided to accept.

"I will gladly accept your offer. But... do I need to do anything for you to stay?"

The queen, Marieterria, stood up.

"No you do not need to do anything for us, Blue. But know that there is creatures that attack the kingdom every few days. We wanted to tell you that this kingdom is the last civilization of this planet. We manage to hold off the creatures but we still lose many of our people. So know that you can make the choice to fight or hide when they attack."

Lance nodded. He gave it some thought and knew what he decide to do.

"I will fight. If this is going to be my new home, I want to defend it. I just need to have some training to get used to the prosthetics."

The king and queen looked at each other in surprise. They did know that he was a Paladin of Voltron, but they didn't know that he wanted to still fight even though he just got healed. They looked like they were having a silent conversation in their minds (who knows, they might be since they're aliens). They looked back at the Cuban and nodded.

"Very well. Your helper, Lateina, will show you your room. Hope you enjoy your new home." Queen Marieterria said. Lance thanked them and exited the throne room with Lateina to start his new life.